Recent Blog Entries WHOOP

Written by Scrivs on May 18, 2006

Now it would be easier for me to say that we had 699 entries or even 701 (which Colin predicted a couple days ago), but I must admit that we landed on exactly 700 entries when Round 4 closed about a hour ago. I guess I should take this as a sign for good things to come or at the very least I have a cool nickname to give the Round 4 submitters. To everyone that submitted I would like to thank you very much because without your sites we have no Network and I know it’s not easy to expose your hard work for some strangers to judge whether you should get into a Network or not.

We are definitely looking forward to going through each and every site and introducing our newest members shortly. Let the fun begin.

To everyone out there requesting a confirmation email. You know what would make an excellent blog post? How about â€œX things to do to manage expectationsâ€ You could write something like:

As many of you know, Iâ€™ve submitted this blog to the 9rules network. While 9rules does many things right, Iâ€™d like to take a minute and talk about their submission process which still seems to be suffering from growing pains.

1. A confirmation email to the submitter when their site has been successfully submitted. With the high volume of submissions at the front end of the submission window, there were some problems with the form and an email would let the submitter know that their submission was successful.

2. Timelines. It would quell some anxiety out there if we, the great-unwashed masses, knew when and how the accepted sites were notified. Will there be emails to site owners as theyâ€™re accepted? Will there be an announcement day when everyone is contacted at the same time? If so, when is that day? If not, how long should we be waiting by our inboxes for either an accepted or denied email? A week? Three weeks?

3. How are sites selected? Are the sites reviewed by one person? Is there a committee system? Are sites selected by consensus or is there a voting system? Can a site be blackballed by a member of the committee, if there is a committee?

4. How many blogs? Is there a target number or does any good site gain admission? Even if there is no official min or max, are there unofficial goals? Like strengthening certain communities, or competition being harder in those communities with over 10 blogs already.

I could go on, but seeing as how this is a comment, Iâ€™ll stop here. What I find most interesting, is that the answers to these four questions are either on 9rules somewhere, in the comments of blog posts, or in the trackbacks. Its not a manner or releasing new information, but of summarizing all the info thatâ€™s out there for people. Its not a matter of people being stupid or lazy or not doing their homework. Itâ€™s a matter of people wondering if the kind of general guidelines that are out there apply to this specific case.

Managing expectations is clutch when bringing up a new service or really anytime youâ€™re doing something thatâ€™s important to a lot of your users. In this case, I can think of at least 700 people that this matters to.

Anyway, Iâ€™d write this all out, but my site is all short stories and longer fiction.

You’re best bet is to subscribe to the rss feed for this blog. There’s fairly prominent link lurking around here somewhere (up the top of the page in the header). You normally get some advance warning – just enough time in fact to get wonderfully neurotic about your design, your content, your general worthyness… That, and there is generally enough people on assorted blogs shouting about upcoming submission rounds that they are hard to miss. Still regular reading is good too 🙂

Not liking to be one to second-guess the chaps/chapettes in charge around here, I’d imagine the next round (if there even is one. Stranger things have happened) is still a few months down the line.

Now I have shared my two-pennys-worth, I’m off to chew on what is left of my fingernails whilst waiting for the outcome of round 4. Looking forward to discovering new blogs and people to play with 😀

[…] cript:urchinTracker (‘/outgoing/9rules.com/blog/2006/05/round-4-aka-the-700-club-is-over/’);” href=”http://9rules.com/blog/2006/05/round-4-aka-the-700-club-is-over/”>recently opened invitations for round 4. Many great bloggers made the cut, inclu […]

[…] We can’t boast about having 700 applicants but we’re definitely excited about where things are going. To everyone who has applied recently don’t worry, I’ll be sending you can email shortly. For the rest of you interested in applying just keep your eye on Random Shapes and we’ll let you know when we’ll be accepting applicants again. […]

[…] Submission Round 4 for the 9rules Network was dubbed the “700 Club” because we received 700 submissions from sites that wanted to join the Network. This wentabove and beyond our expectations and with that we are proud to announce that we will be opening Round 5 on October 25. […]